Don’t Look Up

In Don’t Look Up a young scientist (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a comet heading directly towards Earth. It is estimated to hit in six months. With that horrifying knowledge, suddenly she and her professor (Leonardo DiCaprio) are sent to Washington to meet with the Head of Planetary Defense (Rob Morgan) and inform the president (Meryl Streep) of the impending doom. What’s worse than knowing a comet is about to destroy the Earth? How about watching our leaders do nothing about it, unless it would directly improve their political agenda?

One of the hardest pills to swallow from Don’t Look Up is how it shows that those in positions of power are rarely our “best and brightest”. And sadly, even when we do have smart, moral people on the front lines, like DiCaprio’s character is supposed to be, the limelight can often cloud their judgment. The film depicts how a modern mixture of fame, media, wealth and crisis can have disastrous outcomes for the masses. 

I think what makes Don’t Look Up best picture material is that last scene around the dinner table. Mindy’s family talks about what they’re most thankful for, their most meaningful moments, eat and wait together for impact to happen. Edited in are moments across the globe as the world waits for impact too. Bees buzz, babies coo, people pray, fight and make love. What’s shown of the comet impacting is terrifying, powerful and beautiful. The whole scene packs a surprisingly emotional punch in such a comical film. 

Don’t Look Up is nominated for just four Academy Awards. They include Best Picture, original screenplay, original score and film editing. It may not sound like much compared to some of the heavy hitters, but it’s quite an honor for a disaster satire on Netflix.

Since Don’t Look Up dropped on Netflix to the masses it has sparked some politically charged love and hate, very little in between. Adam McKay’s films tend to do this, even when based in fiction. Some complain that it is ridiculous, Washington’s leaders would never behave like that, we have nothing to fear and it’s all leftist hysteria. Others say it’s practically a documentary, mirrors previous administrations and a similar scenario may be the downfall of civilization. I personally just hope we don’t live so see such times, we’ve seen enough in the last few years. 

“So basically what you’re saying is you’re about to lose the midterms cause you got caught sending pictures of your cooch to your pornstar-sheriff-boyfriend, so now it’s to your advantage to act on the comet?” 

Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood

It’s said that Quentin Tarantio has called his latest film, Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, his Magnum Opus. Whether his fans agree or disagree, to call the 9th out of the 10 planned feature films of his career his most important piece is daring and begs us to pay close attention. To savor every detail. To find deeper meaning in this story. 

The film is a gripping tale spun out of Hollywood history at the sunset of the golden era. In 1969, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a fading movie star. He’s best known for his lead role in a television western, Bounty Law. With the realization that he’s “a has-been” he throws himself into some new western roles and even some spaghetti westerns. That’s also good news for his friend and stunt double, Clint Booth (Brad Pitt), who tags along, hopes for work, but mostly drives Rick around since he lost his license. One day while Rick is busy filming, Clint picks up a young hippie girl hitchhiking and takes her home, which happens to be an old Hollywood movie ranch he and Rick used to work on. Clint senses something sinister there. The story ties in, Rick’s new neighbors, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate as well as a few of their friends that share an eventful evening. 

DiCaprio and Pitt working together brings us one of the best on screen duos I’ve ever seen. They’re both Hollywood icons most Tarantino fans have watched growing up and to see them together for the first time is wonderfully entertaining. DiCaprio’s violent improvising in the trailer is one of the best moments in the film. And Pitt’s charismatically aloof character with a fishy past is captivating. While each of their roles are uniquely perfect for them, their chemistry between them is solid and electrifying. At times, they make this film feel like a buddy movie, especially when Clint has to remind Rick who he is.

Tarantino films are known to be especially violent. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood also has those extremely violent moments that only Tarantino could pull off. True to his fashion, many of those moments made me laugh in horror. I loved it. But without giving too much away, I will say that there is quite a bit less violence than usual for Tarantino. Most of the film is rather calm and focuses on story and character interaction. And it never feels dull. But when the knives are out, it goes from zero to sixty in no time and keeps getting more intense until the end. 

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is Tarantino’s love letter to Hollywood’s golden age, where he tries to administer some justice. It makes me wonder just how much affect the Manson murders had on young Quenton and how much he may have idolized those tv cowboys like Dalton played. The film is full of nostalgia and style, from the shiny classic cars, vintage shop fronts down to the knit hippie clothes. And of course, I love how much his use of stunt workers as characters. The scene between Pitt, Zoe Bell, Kurt Russell and Mike Moh as a young Bruce Lee was one of my favorites. 

“You know, you’re kinda pretty for a stuntman.”

The Revenant

The other night, a storm rolled through.  There are a few trees in my yard I always worry about falling over.  With the wind gusting and the rain pouring down, theses trees were shaking every which way.  But then I remembered a line in The Revenant.  “When there is a storm. And you stand in front of a tree. If you look at its branches, you swear it will fall. But if you watch the trunk, you will see its stability.”  It’s true, the trunk was steady.  That tree wasn’t going anywhere.  Another storm weathered without having to replace my neighbor’s fence.  

But that’s too literal.  We are all trees and in the storms of our lives, our branches are going to be shaken.  Shaken so hard we may lose a few.  But our trunks, anchored by strong roots are not going to let go so easily.  The Revenant is about a man with one hell of a strong trunk.  He’s not going down, even when he’s been mauled by a bear, helplessly watched his son murdered right in front of him and left in a shallow grave to die.  

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, the one with the strong trunk I mentioned above.  He and his son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) are leading some fur traders around the American frontier, in wild lands full of angry Native Americans who are looking for whoever took Powaqa, the chief’s daughter.  They lose a lot of men when they are attacked in the first big scene of the film.  The fact that Glass’s son is half Native American does not win him many friends among the fur traders.  After Glass is brutally attacked by a bear, Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) decides to leave three men to take care of Glass until he can make the trip back, or bury him when he dies.  Hawk, Bridger (Will Poulter) and Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) volunteer, though it’s obvious Fitzgerald only does so for the extra money.  Fitzgerald kills Hawk and tricks Bridger into leaving Glass.  And Glass rises up from the grave he was left in to seek revenge on Fitzgerald.

If Leonardo DiCaprio does not win an Oscar for this brutal role, I don’t know if he ever can.  The scene where he is attacked by the bear is intense, frightening and convincing.  From then on, being dead weight in a stretcher made from tree branches and slowly recovering DiCaprio does not let up.  After he is abandoned, he does not give up. We watch him drag himself across the dirt and snow.  In one scene he really eats a raw bison liver.  In another he crawls inside a real dead horse as if it were a damn Tauntaun. Like a Luke Skywalker on the frozen frontier.  Just imagining all the suffering DiCaprio and the rest of the crew went through schlepping through the snow to make this film they all deserve the highest awards.

Tommy Hardy becomes a remarkable villain in this film and it earned him his first Oscar nomination.  He seems to have survived a scalping and obviously has a bad relationship with the Native Americans.  With Glass having a “half breed” son, he picks Glass and his son as enemies immediately.  The way we love to hate Fitzgerald helps us justify Glass’s motives for revenge, even if he doesn’t seem the sort for revenge.  

The Revenant is nominated for a whopping twelve Academy Awards, the most of any film this year.  DiCaprio is nominated for lead actor while Hardy earns nomination for supporting actor.  Director Alejandro González Iñárritu received his third directing nomination.  The rest are for cinematography, editing, production design, hair/makeup styling, costume design, sound mixing, sound editing and, of course, best picture.  I’m sure The Revenant will not leave Oscar night empty handed.

While I do not recommend this film for a date night, I do think it is a great and well done movie.  It has a rare mix of natural beauty and old grit that is amazing to see in a modern film.  I was very happy to read that Iñárritu decided to use no CGI and only natural light in nearly the entire movie.  And while DiCaprio’s performance here is far from glamorous, it is amazing and not to be missed.  

“No… Revenge is in God’s hands.  Not mine.”

The Wolf of Wall Street

Scorsese’s latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street is a three hour, fast paced wild ride through a lifestyle filled with gratuitous amounts of sex, drugs, and of course, money.  How lucky we are to be along for the ride!  It’s fun, hilarious and mixes well between all the very dark moments throughout the film.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort, a real life Wall Street broker turned tycoon.  His beginnings are humble enough, especially after a set back early in his career, but it actually turns into a silver lining where he learns to sell “pink sheet” penny stocks to suckers and make a killing on the commission.  He assembles a team of brokers, who are basically ambitiously greedy men who can sell anybody anything, and starts a company.  It grows from working in an old auto body shop to a big time office building quickly.

The business is mainly a background to all the debauchery and fast living Jordan and his gang get into.  With all their money they seem invincible.  They are able to get and take a copious amount of drugs and drink the finest booze at the nicest beach houses or biggest yachts.  And everywhere these guys go, office, home, parties, you name it, they have women ready and waiting.  There are crazy scenes that make the office look more like a drunken bacchanal than a place of work.  And it’s all laid out with dialogue that would make a sailor cover his ears (through no N-word, though it is referred to as the N-word, it is not said).

So just a small word of caution to those who are a little squeamish about too much sex, drugs or profanity in movies, you might want to sit this one out.  It’s a lot of everything, and tops the charts for the most uses of the F-word.  Some things were edited out to bring the film down from NC-17 to a hard R rating.  It took some slick editing just to make a quick trailer fit for television.

But oh my God, it’s so f–king great!  DiCaprio leads the gang with gusto, lets us into Jordan’s crazy lifestyle and all the ups and downs wonderfully.  I especially love the way he breaks the fourth wall throughout the film.  The style reminds me a bit of Goodfellas.  He gives Jordan so much charisma, despite all his devastating flaws.

Steering the film with DiCaprio is Jonah Hill, as Jordan’s second in command, Donnie Azoff.  Between the look of his character (chubby with dorky glasses and goofy teeth), his body language and everything he says, he is a perfect riot.  He steals so many scenes in the most outrageous ways and always has some witty line to deliver perfectly.  I walked out of the theater convinced that Hill would get an Oscar nomination, and I was right.

The Wolf of Wall Street earned a total of five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and best adapted screenplay.  Martin Scorsese earned his eighth nomination for best director.  Along with Hill’s nomination for best supporting actor, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for lead actor.

One unforgettable scene is when Jordan and Donnie take an old drug, called lemons.  Since they’re pretty old, they take more than they should, attempting to reach a new high.  Once they kick in, it’s an awful, terrible riot.  No, I don’t find drug abuse funny, but the way DiCaprio and Hill portray such an intense hit is hard not to laugh at, even when Donnie nearly chokes on lunch meat.  And now I can never look at Popeye the same way again

“The year I turned 26 is the head of my own brokerage firm I made 49 million dollars, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.  No, no, no.  My Ferrari was white like Don Johnson’s in Miami Vice, not red.”

Summer 2013 Movies

Happy June!  It’s hot out and the theaters are nice and cool, which means there are some fun blockbuster movies to check out.  Though I’m not the kind of online critic who sees the latest movies in theaters every week, I couldn’t help but catch a few that I have been looking forward to.  Here are what I have seen and how they measure up.  Enjoy the images of our stars sitting around:

Iron Man 3

Of all the recent superhero movies (both Marvel and DC universes taken into account) I have been most impressed by Iron Man’s story, as well as his team of Avengers.  Robert Downey Jr. brings Tony Stark to life wonderfully, giving him a real personality that is perfectly flawed yet believable and sympathetic.  Here, Tony as a character excels, so do his amazing Iron Man suits.

The film is a great mix of superhero action, comedy with just enough drama  to feel very human under all that armor.  There are some interesting new minor characters and a surprisingly funny twist in this terrorist plot.  Though Tony is on a mission to stop the Mandarin, his real obstacle is himself, and this vulnerability in our hero is what makes the film work under all those special effects.  This is easily the best of the Iron Man trilogy and I would welcome a fourth film.

The Great Gatsby

I might be a sucker for Baz Luhrmann’s films.  Those that I have seen (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet and now Gatsby) seem the follow similar structures, but I really don’t mind.  The beginnings are each so intoxicating, luring me in with bright, enticing images and music that works no matter how illogical it is to the setting.  Once I’m hooked, things head downhill in a hurry, but I’m never quite over how drunk I felt at first.  Luhrmann’s movies are like partying all night and sobering into a hangover.  They lift you up to euphoria, then let you sink back to suck-tastic tragic reality.

While I like and appreciate what Luhrmann is attempting in The Great Gatsby, there are a few things that don’t work for me.  Tobey Maguire can easily pull off being an innocent young man but when he needs to change his character into a more jaded man, it doesn’t convey.  Also, the lingering love between Gatsby and Daisy is portrayed as too optimistic.  Sure, we’re rooting for Gatsby, but sadly he’s just too late and Daisy isn’t helping the situation.

I don’t think this is a great movie, but I did enjoy it, honestly.  DiCaprio is perfect in portraying Gatsby and I only wished his surrounding cast could rise up to meet him.  The visuals and setting, especially during the party scenes, are well accomplished and give me a grand idea of the roaring 20s that a modern 21st century person can relate to.  And the music, I was skeptical when I first Jay-Z was doing it, but it works!  It’s simply a translation to us young people of the 2010s to the 1920s.  I loved the mash-up between Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Let’s Misbehave.

The Great Gatsby is a whirlwind of color, glitz, glamour, romance and tragedy, and on so many levels it works, but where it stumbles, it falls hard.  If you let yourself go, it can be immersive and entertaining.

Star Trek – Into Darkness

I didn’t grow up on Star Trek, I was fully committed to Star Wars.  Trek was just too nerdy, so I thought.  I didn’t see a Star Trek movie until the reboot in 2009, and though I wasn’t moved to fandom, I have to say that I enjoyed it.

Admittedly, Into Darkness probably made a lot of great jokes and connections that Star Trek fans loved, that I didn’t get (at least that’s what the random fits of laughter in my theater told me).  I quite enjoy Spok and his logic to no end, Kirk with his red-blooded heroism and Scotty for being great comic relief with just enough support to the rest of the cast/crew.  The villain, a big Star Trek name, fell flat to me.  Yeah, he’s menacing but I didn’t find myself caring much.

However, Star Trek is fun.  It’s a film for all, welcoming to those who are not Star Trek fans, just movie fans. And that gives me confidence that J.J. Abrams will be good to Star Wars later. There’s plenty of action, big spacey explosions, fights and suspenseful beam-up moments.  Most of all, I never realized just how big The Enterprise is, because everyone is running all over that big-ass ship.  That must be how everyone on board stays in such great shape.  Seriously, there are so many shots of Kirk and the gang running down hallways.

Django Unchained

Remember being a little kid waiting for Christmas?  There was a big anticipation for the wonderful gifts you may receive and from a few suspicious packages under the tree, you guessed it would be all you wanted and more.  That’s kind of how I was waiting for Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Django Unchained, to release on Christmas.  Thing is, instead of unwrapping a remote control helicopter, new bike or whatever would make your head explode into instant joy, Django was like finding an odd kind of gift your lovably weird uncle picked up at a mystical thrift store.  It’s still so unique and undeniably cool, but I’m not sure I know what to do with it yet.  I genuinely like the film and am thankful for it, but I’m not sure if I love it or if I will grow to do so.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave in the American south about two years before the Civil War.  You know, the height of southern arrogance, or elegance, depending on your point of view.  Anyways, he is freed by a German dentist turned bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz).  He asks Django to help him find and kill the Brittle brothers and earn a share of the profits.  The two become a team and as Django puts it, “Kill white people and get paid for it? What’s not to like?”  When they get word that Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), is on a large plantation owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) plantation, they concoct a plan to buy her and save her from the slave life.

While they are only supporting, Waltz and DiCaprio are the biggest forces driving this film forward.  We clearly see that Django would be nowhere without his quirky German friend, his silver tongue and charismatic reasoning brings them in and out of danger as smooth as the tide.  And DiCaprio is a perfectly evil southern gentleman that we love to hate.  During the dinner scene, his unexpected burst of anger is amazing and made me jump.  He can just seethe that intangible arrogance and disregard for his slaves that we can’t even imagine a real person possessing.  Best of all, he can drink out of a coconut chalice like it’s not a joke.  I wish both men had the Oscar nomination, but I’m happy Waltz is in the game.

Django Unchained is nominated for five Oscars total.  Beside’s Waltz’s Supporting Actor nomination, the film also holds Cinematography, Original Screenplay, Sound Editing and most importantly a Best Picture nomination.  I was surprised Tarantino was not up for best director, but there have been greater tragedies.

The scene featuring early clan members is one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen in a Tarantino film.  The band of about thirty half-wit white men on horses has met out in the middle of nowhere to ambush Dr. Schultz and Django’s camp, but there’s one problem: their masks suck.  An argument brews about them, “I can’t see shit!”  Jonah Hill has a fun part here trying to make his eye holes bigger only to make it worse.  Best of all, the man who supplied the masks gets all huffy about their ingratitude and rides off.  The whole scene works wonders to poke some fun at the KKK and allege that their beginnings were just born out of pure stupidity.

In fact, the way Tarantino treats most of the white southerners feels like such fun and sweet revenge.  They are all either hilariously stupid or so evil that you love to hate them.  That may sound like his treatment of the Nazis in Inglourious Basterds, but it feels much different here.  It’s kind of like how Spielberg treats the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but cranked up to eleven.

Django has all your basic Tarantino elements and keeps them fresh.  There is plenty of blood splashing, gun slinging, slave whipping violence that could be a bit much for the casual film fan.  There is plenty of flowing dialogue, led mostly by Waltz and DiCaprio while Django is a badass hero of few words.  The soundtrack is nowhere near the 1850s, but the selections give such a perfect tone to the film that we shouldn’t care.  Let’s see, there’s also a Mexican standoff, a few fun explosions, and enough use of the N-word to burn the ears off the most politically correct.  It’s a very Tarantino film.

Like I said, I really liked Django Unchained, but I think I need more time and more viewings to find out if I love it.  To be fair, I didn’t love Pulp Fiction at first viewing, and I didn’t even like Kill Bill the first time I saw it, (blasphemy, I know).  But I do know I like Django, this weird Spaghetti Western/Blaxploitation inspired revenge film full of blood, quirky characters and unexpected hilarity.

“I’m just a little more used to Americans than he is.”

Catch Me If You Can

When most kids run away from home, they don’t last on their own for very long.  My sister didn’t make it past the front walk.  Those that venture further usually find that one real world problem blocks them: money.  Frank Abagnale Jr., a real life teenage conman in the 1960s, figured this out and forged millions in checks.  He was young, with a suitcase full of cash, confidently posing as a pilot, doctor and lawyer.  For a while, it seems like the world is his for the taking, but his fraudulent actions were always raising suspicion and he could never be more than a man on the run.

Before he runs, we see Frank and his parents in a happier time.  There is real respect and admiration between Frank Sr.(Christopher Walken) and Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio).  When Frank Sr. is audited severely, the family loses their house and Frank Jr. witnesses his parents’ marriage fall apart.  Rather than choose which parent to live with, he runs away, armed with a checking account his father gave him, with only $25 in the bank.

Steven Speilberg directs Catch Me If You Can, depicting Frank’s running years like one long caper.  Throughout the film, we cheer on Frank as he suavely maneuvers through airports, hospitals, banks and hotels.  To the innocent people around him, he fits in, raises no suspicion and seems like a very respectful young man.  However, we see through to his motives, from the way he asks questions innocently to that old trick with the necklace he learned from his father.  We see how smart he is and how much detail he puts into forging his documents too.  He gets better at his processes as he goes, even hand making his own Harvard diploma.

Besides forging checks, Frank is not such a bad guy.  We don’t see any signs of malice or ill intent further than stealing money in the classiest way and his abuse of power doesn’t extend further than free plane rides.  And if you could get away with it, wouldn’t you buy an Aston Martin?  Throughout all of his wrong doings, it seems that his motive is just to get his parents back together.  He’s just a kid wanting to fix his family.

What makes this film exciting, is the chase.  Nearly the whole time, FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) is looking for Frank.  The first time the two meet face to face, Frank tricks him into thinking he is a secret service agent, and just narrowly escapes.  From then on, Carl makes it his personal mission to catch this kid.  Though they’re apart, with Carl always just a step or two behind Frank, the two are always connected and develop an odd relationship throughout the film.  From their annual Christmas Eve call, we can tell neither of them has any real friends or close family.

When it came to the Oscars, Catch Me If You Can only received two nominations.  One was for Christopher Walken’s supporting role as Frank Jr.’s father.  He’s a perfect catalyst for the son’s running and a role model in a way that Frank Sr. could not have imagined his teachings would serve.  I believe it was the scene in the restaurant where Walken is so great at being on the edge of his emotions that brought him the nomination.  The film’s other nomination was for original score, by John Williams.

Catch Me If You Can is one of Spielberg’s films teeters between fun and serious.  At times it can feel like a comic caper or a whimsical story of a boy who ran away from home.  Frank’s adventures as he runs makes us like him, cheer him on and have fun.  The dark side and loneliness that comes with always running and eventually getting caught is not forgotten.  Some of the best parts of the film are when we see his dad’s perspective on the Yankees in action.  You can get away with a lot when you look so good and convincing, it distracts people like a perfect magic trick.

“It’s ’cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.”

Inception

Dreams within dreams always scare me and leave me making sure I really am awake.  Just last month, after an eventful night of dreams where I thought I had just woken up only to wake up to a new dream, I tweeted this:  Too many dreams where I thought I was awake only to wake up and fall back to sleep. This tweet proves to me that I am awake. Twitter became my totem, not as classy as Leo’s spinning top, but it worked for me.  Whenever I wake up from a dream I can usually only remember two things, if anything: an idea or details of the setting.  In Christopher Nolan’s Inception, the plot is still concrete, but the ideas and settings are what stay in my mind.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a thief who uses technology that can let multiple people enter one person’s mind through dreams to steal secrets.  He has been on the run and given the chance to return to his family if he can do a job that’s never been done, inception, or planting an idea into someones mind.  To pull this off will require a lot of planning, recruiting a new architect, Ariadne (Ellen Page), a very long sedated plane ride and plunging into three dream levels.  That’s a dream, within a dream, within a dream and in each level time seems much longer than in the last level.  But Cobb has been doing these artificial dreams so long that his subconscious can run wild, creating projections of his wife within each level.  And she always seems to ruin his plans.

Inception is a film full of ideas and concepts that can absolutely boggle the mind.  The trick is to get the audience on board, give them the tools and background information needed to understand the components of being in a dream, what the job of the architect is, how the subconscious can react and the dangers involved.  Everything leading up to the the big dream with Fischer (Cillian Murphy), is just practice, just class time.  But if you’ve paid attention, it all pays off and you are completely on board through the final dream mission.  If you are afraid you’ll miss a few things or will just be confused, it’s not as bad as it sounds.  The whole film is in chronological order, except for some background information Cobb gives later.  The film masterfully gives you everything you need to know at the appropriate times.

What I really noticed and appreciated in my second viewing of the film is all the details put into every scene.  The first dream takes place in an oriental style building, with hundreds of lanterns hanging from the ceiling.  Later, in the Mombasa scenes, Yusuf’s shop with all the yellow glass bottles and the narrow corridors between buildings seem like the oddly specific details I’d remember from a dream.  Yet, that is supposed to be real life.  Keep on your toes about what is a dream and what is not.  Nearly every scene can be distinguished by it’s setting in details and basic atmosphere.  And always remember to ask yourself, How did they get there?

Not many of the cool summer films make it to the Best Picture category, but Christopher Nolan knows how to consistently make great films that are full of pulsing action, eye popping effects and mind bending plots.  Part of my theory about why there are now ten Best Picture nominees is because of the outrage that Nolan’s The Dark Knight was counted out in 2008.  I was excited that Inception made it to this years top ten, but alas, Nolan was not nominated for Best Director.  And I feel like that’s just a damn shame.

“What is the most resilient parasite?  Bacteria?  A virus?  An intestinal worm?  An idea.”

If the Academy is looking to award Nolan for his consistently excellent film making or just loves wrapping their mind around dreams, Inception will win Best Picture.

The Aviator

The Aviator is a biopic about Howard Hughes, the director, producer and aviator.  We first meet him (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) as a young man, stubbornly trying to direct his feature film Hell’s Angels. The movie is bigger than any film ever attempted before, way over budget and Howard keeps extending the project to get every detail perfect.  He even postpones production for eight months waiting for clouds for his dogfight scenes.

When Hell’s Angels is finally complete, his work with airplanes has just begun.  He starts breaking records, flying around the world and designing planes that look like cruse-liners for the sky.  All this, his films and his relationship with Kathrine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) draw the spotlight to him, though he doesn’t want it.

Howard’s greatest strength and weakness is his compulsive attention to detail.  It’s what makes his films spectacular and his airplanes amazing, but it starts to become a burden.  We notice how nervous and anxious he becomes around crowds, how he makes excuses to not shake someone’s hand and runs to the restroom to wash his hands with his own bar of soap.  As his fame rises, so does his OCD and the film becomes more than The Aviator, but an intriguing hidden life profile of Howard Hughes.

This role is one of DiCaprio’s finest.  He is practically  flawless here.  Every little tick about Howard is brought to life wonderfully and completely believable.  He’s perfectly eccentric but never feels over-the-top, even when he’s locked himself in his private theater naked and lining up milk jars of urine.  Just a warning, you will see his butt more than you care to.

At different points in the film, the color seems a bit askew, but that’s not a bad thing.  While watching, I thought the colors were beautiful.  They popped in a different way, like a classic art deco poster.  Later, I found out that Scorsese actually filmed each era to reflect how it would look in color film at that time.  As the film progresses into more modern era, the colors become more realistic.  But I did enjoy the turquoise peas.

One of my favorite scenes is when Howard finally gets his clouds to film the dog fight scenes in Hell’s Angels.  He and a whole fleet of planes are in the air, buzzing around the clouds to one of my favorite pieces of music:  Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  You can feel a real passion about Howard as he’s standing in the plane, craning and moving around with his camera trying to get every spectacular shot and angle he possibly can and yet all around him is absolutely beautiful.  I realize it’s all CG and special effects, but I’m a real sucker for it.

I truly enjoyed this film from beginning to end, and I usually shrug off biopics.  DiCaprio is great, Blanchett won best actress for portaying Kathrine Hepburn and Scorsese adds another great film to his belt and this was just the beginning of DiCaprio’s work with Scorsese.  If you have any interest in Howard Hughes, Hell’s Angels, miles stones in aviation this film will be a treat.

“The way of the future.”

Titanic

Alright, it’s a little embarrassing to admit, but this is my nostalgia film.  Titanic was the biggest box office film of my adolescence and at twelve years old, if you didn’t see Titanic you weren’t cool.  As I prepared myself to re-watch what blew my mind twelve years ago, I was ready to rip it apart and spread my utter dislike for the egotistical James Cameron.  What I didn’t expect was to simply find joy and remember why I loved this movie so much.

The film opens with what looks like old footage of Titanic setting sail, then present day submarine crews are exploring the wreckage showing us ghostly underwater images and haunting artifacts that remind us of the lives lost.  They’re looking for a treasured necklace; The Heart of the Ocean, but instead they find a drawing.  One hundred year old Rose (Gloria Stuart) sees the drawing on the news and recognizes herself in it.  So she goes to the crew in the middle of the Atlantic and tells her story.

Rose (Kate Winslet) is our damsel in distress; young beautiful and engaged to a man she doesn’t love (Billy Zane).  Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) is our poor and perfect young man that she falls in love with and only the looming tragedy of the unsinkable can break them apart.  Let’s not forget about the ship drama, Captain Edward James Smith is being pressured to push the engine and arrive in New York early, which will be the cause of the wreck.  Simple and lovely

This has everything chicks love: sweeping romance, tear jerker scenes, obvious dialogue, and excessive jewelry.  And guys can stand it because there will be disastrous action, female nudity and the satisfaction that wonderboy will die.  Sorry to give away the ending like that, but hasn’t everyone over the age of ten seen Titanic already?  It’s your own fault by now.

I’m not going to let this film get off too easy.  The dialogue is downright laughable at times, but that’s where some of those great lines that plagued remixes of “My Heart Will Go On” those dreaded months where it was played every ten minutes by every radio station.  Am I the only one who remembers that dribble?  Every conversation between Rose and Jack just seems so presumptuous and fake.  It’s Jack’s few convincing moments where Rose doesn’t open her mouth for a while that keep me from groaning.  I think the expression, “She’s pretty when she’s quiet,” fits young Rose perfectly.

Kate Winslet is not convincing at all, especially during her first encounter with Jack.  “Don’t presume to tell me what I will and will not do.”  Who is that wordy when they’re hanging off the back of a ship?  Today I recognize Rose’s little stunt as just a typical teenage cry for attention and needless drama, but hey, we all did some pathetic things at seventeen.  When I remember that Winslet is playing a teenager, I find the horrible lines and stupid decisions a little more forgivable, but not completely.  I believe she was nominated for best actress to make Titanic just a little bigger and to congratulate her daring nudity.

Too many times, James Cameron has been a huge pain in my bladder, but I will say that Titanic is his masterpiece.  Every detail is meticulous, timed perfectly and provokes the viewer in every way from a quaint smile, frightened excitement and sweeping sad emotion.

There is horrific beauty in the sinking.  The groaning of the ship, the rushing water and countless people falling like raindrops into the ocean is exhilarating.  The most terrifying thought in my head at the age of twelve was, “This is pretty much how it happened.”  I love the way my heart drops when the lights go out on the ship, it breaks in half and smashes all the tiny people below.  There are few movie moments in my time that have compared.

I am not one for romance and the cheap dialogue feels like it’ll give my ears a rash, but there’s something about Titanic that gets me every time.  Maybe it’s Cameron’s peak at film making, the realism and spin on history.  Maybe the whole film is such beautiful eye candy and the whole thing is done remarkably well.  And the true test to tell I like the film, during the time-clinching sinking scenes I find myself yelling (usually at stupid Rose).  They keep going down to where the water is and putting themselves in needless danger.  Over and over again; do they like the freezing water?  When I’m yelling at the characters and not the movie, there’s no fighting it, I love it.

I would like to ask the MPAA what exactly their guidelines for rating Titanic only PG-13 were?  To my understanding, isn’t there only allowed one used of the F-word in a PG-13 film?  I don’t want to be that little knit-picker, but I counted two.  Maybe they’re more diluted over that three hour span, but I believe that technically Titanic should have been rated R.  If this had been so, the history of blockbusters would be much different, and countless twelve-year-olds, like me, would not have paid for two different showings adding to the massive profits.  Yet, I’m so glad I was able to see this at that age.  Tsk, tsk MPAA.  Don’t you enforce your own rules or do big budget blockbusters get some freebies now and then?

The one thing to take away from Titanic isn’t the mushy love story or the fantastic disaster, but the concept that real treasures aren’t physical relics, it is the memories that keep the past alive.  I don’t know if I really grasped that twelve years ago, but at the same time I don’t think that grand idea was completely lost to my young mind.  There’s always been a need for me to share stories, to keep those lost times alive.  Even if only in one’s own mind, one of our most basic beautiful human needs is to remember the past.  With Titanic’s one hundred year anniversary closing in, this concept seems more precious than ever.

“It’s been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.”